Do you agree with the definition of Just Transition given in the introduction to this theme? Can you explain why?

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In fashion, Just Transition is about ensuring justice during and after the change to a low-carbon fashion system that protects and restores nature - and in the context of technological change. For the Clean Clothes Campaign, justice means respecting and protecting workers' rights, including a living wage, freedom of association, social protection, health and safety, and freedom from harassment and discrimination. It means that companies are held accountable for damage to people and the environment. It also requires repairing the damage done to workers and their communities, both by the climate crisis and by the transformation to a low-carbon industry that protects and restores nature.

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David Hachfeld

14/05/2025 15:58

The Definition is good, except that instead of a low carbon economy we should better speak of an economy within/respecting planetary boundaries (which includes a beeing low-carbon)

Giuseppe

14/05/2025 16:35 Modificato

I disagree.
I think 'planetary boundaries' is a Malthusian concept that is vague, hard to define in economic and technical terms and generally anti-poor (and has been used as such in previous iterations of this idea). Production and redistributive capacity should be based on needs, capacity and democratic decision-making, not on some essentialist view of nature.

Liz

26/05/2025 11:25

I don't fully understand the Malthusian reference or how planetary boundaries is anti-poor, but I'm interested to hear more about this. Can you share any links to articles about this or say more?

26/05/2025 19:36

It is Malthusian insofar as it postulates that there is some sort of natural carrying capacity that would entail catastrophic consequences if overblown. The original Malthusian argument was that, during the English industrial revolution, populational was increasing geometrically (exponentially) while agricultural yields were increangly linearly - leading to the conclusions that, without radically reducing population growth, everyone would eventually go hungry. Of course Malthus was proven wrong, as food yields historically more than kept up with population growth, but his theories were used to justify anti-poor, anti-welfare and eugenics measures in England and in parts of Europe. I think what Malthus failed to grasp is the social relations that underpin population-growth, food production and land allocation. These social relations are political.

By establishing the idea that there are natural limits below which human life is safe, sort of reproduces this idea that there exist arbitrary, God-imposed limits that we must respect or doom will befall us. The reality is that the relation people have with nature (what some marxists call 'social metabolism') is a social one, and is mediated by production. Any 'limit' is, I think, dialectically produced in the interaction between labour, non-human nature (or the natural environment) and capital. For example, ocean acidification or ozone layer depletion (two of the 9 planetary boundaries) only have 'limits' insofar as the processes of production that acidify oceans and deplete ozone excercise pressure on them, but those limits change if the social dynamics that produced them change.

Where this gets Malthusian is, in the absence of a working class alternative to mainstream economics, that the only possible political solution to staying within the boundaries is to be found on the demand-side, and never on the supply side. This can either lead to rely on calls for consumers to 'consume less', or impositions to do so. But of course, because capital is a social relation, the first is unlikely and the second authoritarian. In both cases, the pressure remains on the working classes. (1/2)
 

26/05/2025 19:37

(2/2)
I am sure many supporters of the 'limits' or 'boundaries' idea will object to this and say that the only way to stay within the boundaries is to change dynamics of production, which is true. But this is unlikely to lead anywhere as a political strategy, as it is trying to trigger social change by addressing a 'scientific', allegedly 'objective' problem to solve what is a social problem. Indeed, the whole conceptualising of planetry boundaries ignores completely the question of power and politics.

I know that some have tried to add an additional 'societal' boundary to make up for this blind spot, but the whole system is permeated by an economics of scarcity and fails to account for the way 'limits' are historically and socially produced. Sorry this is a very long answer! And I hope it didn't sound too preachy - I think about this too much!
(Also I went over the word limit, do I get a badge? :D)

Jiska Gojowczyk

27/06/2025 09:00 Modificato

Danke, Giuseppe, für den Hinweis! Ich kenne die Diskussionen um Malthus' Thesen gut, wenn es um die rechten Argumentationsstrenge um eine "Kontrolle" von Bevölkerungswachstums geht. Ich habe sie gedanklich nie mit der Diskussion um planetare Grenzen zusammengebracht, finde aber deine Argumente sehr plausibel und überzeugend. Tatsächlich müssen wir ja gleichzeitig aber davon ausgehen, dass wir als Weltgemeinschaft mit ökologischen Knappheiten haushalten müssen, weswegen Verteilungsfragen so zentral sind.4, wie du schreibst. Vielleicht kann die Vielfältigkeit der ökologischen Krisen anders angesprochen werden als mit dem Begriff der Grenzen?

08/10/2025 10:34

Hi giuseppe, my main point is to go beyond climate, taking into account other environmental dimensions.
Do we agree on this point?

08/10/2025 10:40

While acknowledging that it is possible to frame a boundary concept in the way do problematize it, I disagree with your interpretation that it is inherent to the theoretical framework.
Especially if you follow how the framework is beeing used, also expecially in context of global justice concepts, I don't find it appropriate to bash "planetary boundaries = Malthusian concept and anti poor" in such a general way.

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